John L. Dunn, Attorney

Local:

Jack Dunn is a partner in Dunn & Brown, LLP where he focuses on commercial real estate matters, with a particular emphasis on retail leasing.

Mr. Dunn finished law school near the top of his class in 1986 and joined the legal department of Kimco Realty Corporation in 1988. As Kimco grew, Mr. Dunn created a legal team to support 2000 properties and 183 million square feet of retail space. After 18 years with Kimco, Jack was recruited to join Colonial Properties in Birmingham, Alabama. As Senior Vice President of Colonial, Mr. Dunn completely restructured its retail legal department while representing the landlord in leasing its retail properties.

Mr. Dunn has drafted and negotiated thousands of commercial leases and closed over one hundred sales and acquisitions. Jack has shepherded a number of redevelopments and assisted in the development of new life style centers by negotiating and coordinating sets of national tenants. He assisted in the development of new properties by negotiating the anchor leases and selling outparcels before the infrastructure was in place.

Through a detailed understanding of commercial leases, Mr. Dunn is able to provide outstanding service to both landlords and tenants. Jack is an expert at listening to his clients concerns and creating language that would protect the client's interests and give the client, whether landlord or tenant, a comfort level. With his broad experience in commercial real estate transactions, Mr. Dunn provides effective and cost-efficient service to all of his real estate clients.

National:

Jack Dunn graduated 7th in a class of 250 from Hofstra Law School in 1986. He was both a member of the Law Review and a law fellow. When he took the bar exam, he finished in the top 1/10th of 1% of everyone in the country who took the multistate exam at that time.

After working as a litigator in a law firm in New York City's 30 Rockefeller Center for two years, he joined Kimco Realty Corporation's legal department in New York. At that time, Kimco had 7 million square feet of retail space. However, as Kimco grew, Jack created a legal team to support its 2000 properties and 183 million square feet of retail space. In the process, he became an expert in leasing, acquisitions, development and redevelopment. After 18 years at Kimco, Jack was recruited to join Colonial Properties in Birmingham. As Senior Vice President of Colonial, Jack completely restructured its retail legal department and saved the company over a million dollars in legal fees in just the first eighteen months.

Jack has negotiated thousands of leases and closed about a hundred sales and acquisitions. Jack has done shop leases, mall leases, anchor leases, ground leases, pad leases and office leases. He has created a database of thousands of "fall back" positions to address most contingencies. Jack has resolved innumerable disputes before they reached litigation.

As a landlord's attorney, he learned to listen to the tenant and create language that would give the tenant a comfort level without weakening the landlord's position. At other times, he would have the landlord agree to compromise to get the lease signed more quickly.

Jack has shepherded a number of redevelopments. In one project, a landlord wanted to erect a new building to house a Loew's theater. Of course, that use violated several other tenants' restrictions. Jack was instrumental in getting the other tenants to waive their restrictions against the theater in exchange for greater exclusives. The landlord was able to effectuate this redevelopment without having to pay the tenants any money and without losing any existing or potential tenants. At another property, a landlord wanted to construct an office building and parking garage adjacent to a national retail anchor tenant. The building would be placed in the anchor tenant's parking field. By negotiating complex parking rights and a bridge connecting the garage to the anchor building, the new office building was constructed and now houses the landlord's corporate headquarters as well as a major law firm and several retail tenants on the ground floor.

Jack has assisted in the development of new life style centers by negotiating and coordinating sets of national tenants such as Talbot's, Ann Taylor, Chico's, Cold Water Creek and J. Banks. He has also negotiated dozens of leases with Kohl's, Schnucks and Burlington Coat Factory among many others. He assisted in the development of new properties by negotiating the anchor leases and selling outparcels before the infrastructure was in place.

Through his career, Jack has represented landlords. However, that means that he has been lectured about tenants' rights by tenants' counsel thousands of times. He expects that he knows as much, if not more, about tenants' rights and tenants' needs than he knows about landlords' rights. At this time, he has exceptional inside knowledge of how landlords think and operate.